I sat forward. “What happened?”
Gloria shrugged. “Guess his parents had had enough of supporting him, not to mention his drug habit. He’d even begun dealing by then. So they yanked him out of school. The next day, he skipped town. Whereabouts unknown. Which must have been a great relief to Barbara. There’s no mention in the record of her reporting any further trouble from him.”
She regarded me frankly. “Barbara never told you about all this? Maddox stalking her, the restraining order?”
I shook my head. Though a part of me wasn’t that surprised. Barbara had always been a private person, often reluctant to share her feelings with me. Especially difficult feelings. It was one of the things that used to frustrate me, that often stood in the way of our having true intimacy. I could see how, to her, the whole Maddox affair would be too painful to revisit.
“She probably hoped that part of her life was over,” Gloria said, as though reading my thoughts. “It was all in the past, before she’d met you. Maybe she just wanted to move on.”
“That sounds about right, knowing Barbara. But still…I wish I would’ve known about it.”
Barnes chuckled. “Spoken like a true therapist. You know, Doc, some people like to keep certain things to themselves. Hell, I’m an expert at it.”
I didn’t respond, recalling some of the personal issues he and I had discussed during our therapeutic work together. Given all that I knew about his childhood, his broken marriage, and the psychological rigors of his job with the FBI, I was now left wondering what it was he hadn’t shared with me.
His choice, of course, then and now. As a therapist, I’ve come to respect the right to privacy as much as the benefits of self-disclosure. Holding a secret isn’t necessarily denial.
Keys clicking on the laptop pulled me from my reverie. Barnes had brought up another page from the Maddox case files.
“Thought you might want to see this,” he said. “It’s the transcript from the taped interview the cops did with Maddox after Barbara first reported him.”
I leaned in and peered at the screen. Then, for some reason, found myself reading the transcript aloud.
l l l l l
MADDOX: I don’t exactly know why I’m here, Officer. Surely Barbara’s told you all about our love. The intimacies we share? The furtive glances in class, the half-smiles? Our delicious cat-and-mouse game?
DESK OFFICER: What do you mean, Mr. Maddox?
MADDOX: Oh, she played hard-to-get at first, but I knew she was only playing. Because Barbara and I are meant to be together. She knows it, too. She’s always giving me these little signals of our love, our shared passion. Like when she’ll take off her glasses while speaking, or whenever she wears green. Green is our special color.
DESK OFFICER: Special, eh?
MADDOX: Yes. Even when she’s yelling at me to leave her alone, to stop following her. If she’s wearing green, it’s our secret signal that it’s all an act. To fool the others. We both know that she’s mine and mine alone. Just as I’m hers. That’s why I don’t understand why she reported me to the police. Unless it’s to maintain the pretense. Or maybe even to test my love. See what obstacles I’d overcome to be with her. And I will. Make no mistake, officer. I will be with her. Forever.
DESK OFFICER: That doesn’t seem to be what she wants, buddy. Do you understand that?
MADDOX: No offense, but I believe it’s you who doesn’t quite understand. Not that I blame you. We’re talking about a level of romantic subtlety, of mutual erotic connection between a man and a woman, far beyond your ken. Isn’t there a senior officer, your precinct captain, perhaps, that I could talk to?
l l l l l
I didn’t need to read any more. I pushed the laptop away and got to my feet. Leaned with my back against the counter.
“Erotomania,” I said quietly.
“What’s that?” Gloria turned in her seat.
“It’s a type of delusional disorder, in which a person—in this case, Sebastian Maddox—believes that another person is in love with him. Often, the person believes his or her secret admirer is sending covert signals of their mutual love. Wearing certain colors, or doing certain gestures. Some even believe they’re receiving telepathic messages from their lover.”
“Even if the other person denies it?” Gloria asked. “Tells them to fuck off, get out of their lives. Calls the cops?”
“Nothing dissuades them, Gloria. It’s an unshakeable delusion. As a colleague of mine, George Atwood, once said, ‘It’s a belief whose validity is not open to discussion.’”
Barnes stirred. “That’s why I wanted to show you the transcript, Doc. So you could see how screwed-up this guy is.”
“It also explains the Grail tattoo over his heart,” I said quietly. “And why he chose the name Parsifal as one of his aliases. He felt that Barbara was his Holy Grail, his soul’s divine object of desire.”
“Wow.” Gloria clucked her tongue. “He really believed that he and Barbara were meant to be together.”
“So you can imagine what he thought when he finally decided to come back to Pittsburgh,” Barnes said. “From wherever the hell he’d been since violating the terms of his probation.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Checked DMV. Maddox got his Pennsylvania driver’s license renewed. But once he was back in town, he must’ve looked up Barbara Camden…and found out she’d gotten married. To you.”
Suddenly I felt a chill travel up my spine. Remembering what Maddox had said to me the night before.
I hadn’t understood what he meant then. I did now.
“When he had me bound in that chair, after showing me the video, Maddox said, ‘You took what was mine, now I’ve taken what’s yours.’ He meant that I’d taken Barbara from him. And because he believed that Joy Steadman and I were lovers, he got his revenge all these years later by ‘taking’ her from me. By raping and killing her.”
The room fell nearly silent, hushed except for the dull hum of the refrigerator. Outside, the sun had begun to sink toward the horizon, sending pale shafts of mid-afternoon light through the kitchen’s bay window behind me.
“Now I see why you believe Maddox killed Barbara.” I looked at the two of them. “Once he learned that we were married, he started stalking us. As he had her, years before. He’d decided that if he couldn’t have her, neither could anyone else.”
Barnes scratched his chin. “By this point, he probably felt that Barbara had betrayed him. His insane love for her turning into an intense, murderous hatred. For both of you.”
“So he made a plan,” Gloria said. “He got the job as a valet at the restaurant. He figured it was a way to kill you both, in public, disguised as a mugging gone wrong. But it wasn’t. It was an execution. That’s why he used the name Jack Ketch. A famously brutal executioner.”
“If I were Maddox,” Barnes said, “I would’ve applied for the valet job a few days before he knew you had reservations at the restaurant. This way he’d be familiar with the routine, get friendly with that Ruiz guy, the head valet.”
He sighed. “Too bad that neither of those detectives who interviewed him after the shooting knew about the name ‘Jack Ketch.’ They might’ve held him for further questioning. Maybe even had Maddox’s hands tested for gunpowder residue.”
“Even so,” I said, “Maddox was working hard as a valet that night. Hustling like mad. They all were. I saw them.”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing.” Gloria frowned. “I mean, I still don’t know how the hell he did it—”
A thin, metallic voice cut her off.
“Really? You don’t?”
Stunned into another ominous silence, the three of us turned to stare at my laptop, lid still closed, on the far end of the kitchen counter. It was Sebastian Maddox, coming from the computer’s tiny speaker.
“Wh
at a shame. And you were all doing so well…”
Chapter Fourteen
“He’s been listening to us the whole time,” Gloria said, instinctively falling to a whisper.
“That’s right.” His disembodied voice eerily calm.
I slid along the counter for the laptop, then brought it back to the kitchen table. Opened the lid.
The face of Sebastian Maddox filled the computer’s screen. Cold, self-possessed. Eyes glittering with malice. Other than the tops of a shirt collar, nothing else was visible. Nor was there anything to see in the background. He could be anywhere.
“That’s much better. We can all see each other now.”
I could feel the anger boiling up in my throat as I re-took my seat, joining Barnes and Gloria at the table. Our collective gaze riveted on the screen.
Maddox turned his head slightly.
“As for you, Mr. Barnes, I must admit I’m disappointed to find you alive. But I’ll do better next time. You’ll just move somewhere else in the rotation.”
Then he leveled his attention on Gloria.
“And it’s a real pleasure to meet you, Ms. Reese. It’s nice to know the FBI is hiring some good-looking women. Although the quasi-feminist thing is a turnoff. But don’t worry. I’ll put that to one side when I’m doing you. I’m thinking oral. You blow me, then I blow you…away. How’s that sound, Gloria?”
Her face hardened, and she abruptly stood up. “Fuck you, pal. They don’t pay me enough to sit through this shit.”
With that, she strode out of the room.
Maddox chuckled darkly. “I think she likes me.”
Barnes leaned into the screen. “Listen, you sick fuck, stop waltzing us around and—”
“Are you kidding, Barnes? The dance is just beginning.”
“Maddox!” My voice dagger-sharp. “Look at me!”
He did. I stared at that hard, placid face.
“I know you killed my wife, Maddox. That you tried to kill both of us that night. So why don’t you leave Barnes and Agent Reese out of this? You got your revenge by killing Joy Steadman. Nobody else has to die.”
“Actually, Danny, they do. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Don’t you and Barnes want to know how I did it? How, eleven long years ago, I got away with murder?”
Before I could reply, Barnes’ steely grip was on my arm.
“Yeah, you piece of shit. We want to know.”
I gave Barnes a sidelong look. Then saw him cast a furtive glance past my shoulder. What was he trying to tell me?
I shifted in my seat, straining to make out a barely audible sound coming from just beyond the doorway to the kitchen. It was a voice, soft but urgent. Gloria’s voice.
Of course, I thought. She’d pretended to be angered by Maddox’s comment so she could leave the room and use her cell. I couldn’t make out the words, but I guessed that she’d contacted one of the Bureau’s tech units, requesting they try to pinpoint the signal Maddox was using to ’bot my laptop. To see if they could triangulate his position.
I registered all this in less than a few seconds, my gaze never leaving Maddox’s face.
“Sure, Maddox. Tell us how you did it. Since your ego is so fragile you need to be constantly reassured of your brilliance.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t try shrinking me, Danny boy. My pathetic parents spent a fortune paying guys like you to head-fuck me. All it did was piss me off. Like now.”
An easy smile. “Besides, the way I’ve always seen it, I’m just an excitable boy. Like the Warren Zevon song. You know that song? ‘Excitable Boy.’ A classic. From his first album.”
“Whatever. Just say what you want to say, Maddox. My guess is you’ve been waiting all this time to tell me.”
“Good guess.”
He paused, as though collecting his thoughts. As though wanting to be sure he told the story in exactly the right way.
“After I ran out on my probation, I just drifted around. Scoring dope. Selling dope. The usual junkie circle of life. But all I could think about, the whole time, was Barbara.
“Then one day—I was dealing crack in some shit-hole in Cleveland—I see a copy of the Post-Gazette. Months old. Somebody must’ve brought it from here, left it lying around. So I flip through it and what do I see? A wedding announcement. Two PhDs getting married. Met in graduate school. Romantic as fuck. Daniel Rinaldi and Barbara Camden. The son of a beat cop and the daughter of a distinguished Pitt professor. Two different worlds, etcetera. It’s a goddam Hallmark movie.”
Maddox paused, rubbed the side of his face. For the first time, I noticed beads of sweat on his brow. Whether from anxiety or excitement, or some combination of both, I didn’t know.
“So, naturally, I come back to my beloved hometown,” he began again. “And I start tracking you two. You and Barbara. Your home, your jobs. Where you went, what you did. You see, the marriage was unacceptable. You have to understand that, Danny. Utterly and completely unacceptable.”
He drew a couple of calming breaths.
“Anyway, once I knew what I had to do, the rest was simple. I hacked into your home computer and saw you’d made dinner reservations at the Blue Gill restaurant for the following week. Then I applied for a job as a valet, giving my name to the head guy as Jack Ketch. I figured this mouth-breather wouldn’t know who the fuck that was. And I was right.
“The night you and Barbara came for dinner, the restaurant was really crowded. That prick Ruiz had us valets running around like jackrabbits. But the whole time, I kept an eye on you two. I could see your corner table through the front entrance. So when I saw you ask for the check, I knew it was go-time.
“I parked the next guest’s car in the restaurant lot, but didn’t come right back. Instead, I grabbed my hoodie, gun, and shades from my own car, parked nearby. Then I ran back to the restaurant, just in time to see you and Barbara coming out.
“You know what happened next. It looked like you two were the victims of a mugging that turned violent. The plan was to kill both of you, of course. To execute Barbara for her crushing betrayal, then you, for taking what was mine. And I thought I had. Last thing I saw as I ran off was the both of you lying in pools of blood. People screaming, shouting.
“All I had to do then was return to my car to ditch the hoodie, gun, and shades. When I came back to the restaurant, I just slipped in with the other valets. Unnoticed in all the chaos. To the cops, just another stunned employee. I left feeling damned good about myself. Better than I had in years.
“Until the next day, when I see on the news that only Barbara had died, and that you were clinging to life in the ICU.
“It was maddening, but I knew it wasn’t smart to stick around, in case you recovered and could identify me. Remember, I figured Barbara had told you all about me. Maybe even showed you my mug shot or something. So I made plans to skip town again.”
“So did you?” I asked, breaking the spell of his story.
“Not exactly. I’d still been dealing, and suddenly one of my customers rolls over on me and I get busted. The fucking irony: the same day I get sentenced to ten years in prison, I hear you’re being released from the hospital. Even Zeno of Citium would’ve been devastated.”
Barnes offered a reluctant smile at my puzzlement. “The founder of Stoicism,” he explained.
But Maddox wasn’t smiling.
“Ten long years,” he said tersely, “reading about your life. How you resumed your practice, started consulting with the cops. As the years pass, it only gets worse. Now you’re getting national press about the cases you were involved with. All over the tube, giving your so-called expert opinion. On CNN, for Christ’s sake. You and Wolf Blitzer, hanging. I’m rotting in prison surrounded by low-lifes and degenerates and you’re a fucking TV star.”
I shook my head. “That’s not exactly my life, Maddox. Not by a lon
g shot.”
His voice grew an edge. “Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. ’Cause now I’m out. And my only mission is to take away anyone who’s close to you. Starting with that fine piece of ass, Joy Steadman. My God, they have such a tight pussy when they’re young. But you’d know that.”
“Look, Maddox—”
“But don’t worry, Danny. Your time will come. Once I’ve squeezed every drop of pain out of your fucking heart, it’ll be your turn to die. And I have something really special in mind for that glorious day.”
Barnes grunted. “Ain’t gonna happen, mister.”
Maddox laughed. “Says the retired FBI man who’s still afraid to fall asleep at night. Pathetic. Oh, and you can tell Agent Reese that her Bureau nerds aren’t going to be able to triangulate on my location. Or ever track my IP address. I have firewalls they’ve never even heard of. More to the point, I’m in transit even as we speak. Here, there, and everywhere, like another cool song says.”
As if on cue, Gloria reappeared, sullen.
“No luck,” she announced.
But I didn’t even look up, because Maddox had suddenly disappeared from the screen. In his place was a silent, grainy video image of a busy intersection. Some urban street. Hurrying pedestrians. Cars and trucks moving in and out of frame. In the corner of the image was a time stamp. 3:10 p.m.
I glanced at my watch. The current time.
“It’s a live feed from a traffic security camera,” Gloria said, bending to get a better look. Barnes and I both leaned in closer to do the same.
“Any idea where it is?” I asked.
“Downtown, but away from city center.” Barnes pointed at the screen. “They haven’t paved over the old bricks yet.”
Head Wounds Page 9